


Burning Hearts

by SanFransokyoStreets



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Burned Tadashi, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Night Terrors, Sibling Incest, Slow Build, description of injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3489521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanFransokyoStreets/pseuds/SanFransokyoStreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the fire at the showcase only claims one victim things begin to change. With Tadashi recovering from his injuries and Hiro struggling to fit in to his new college life the rising darkness in San Franksokyo may go unnoticed until it’s too late. Not to mention the confusing new feelings coming between the Hamada brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out of the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Slow updating. If anything happens in a chapter I'll warn you.

Something was wrong.

Where was he? The last he remembered he was still at the showcase.

He’s so proud of Hiro, the microbots completely blew away the competition for the spot at SFIT and soon his little brother would be joining him and others in the labs.

They’d been heading home, Aunt Cass was going to make her special hot wings in celebration.

So how had he ended up here?

Wasn’t he looking for someone? For… Professor Callaghan?

What happened?

His chest felt heavy, like it was one of those cold winter nights and Mochi had curled up on top of him and he’d have to spend the entire night trying to breathe under the lump of a cat.

Just so much _worse_ than that.

Why couldn’t he _breathe?_

Then suddenly, he remembered.

_The Fire._

He’d run into the burning hall looking for Callaghan.

Now he was surrounded. Everything lit up around him in a blaze.

The heat was unbearable, and the air was thick with dark billowing smoke.

The weight on his chest wasn’t their cat but rubble from the rapidly crumbling building, pinning him in place against the floor. He struggled to pull himself out from underneath the heavy stones but every movement seemed to just cause them to weigh heavier and heavier on his body. He slumped back to the ground, coughing and wheezing, trying to get a lungful of breathable air.

He was all alone, trapped inside a burning building.

He had to get out.

He was dying.

Was _going_ to die if he didn’t _get out_.

The flames were almost nipping at his feet, the blistering feeling of being _way too hot_ slowly creeping up his legs.

Why?

Was he really going to go out like this?

He could hear the wailing of sirens just past door but the screams that had lured him to the building in the first place were drowned out by the shrieking and groaning of the building as its frame warped.

There were spots across his eyes, and a darkness creeping out from the corners, a sign that he wasn’t getting enough of the too hot air into his abused lungs.

If he passed out it would be over.

All he could do was attempt to free himself while he drifted further and further away.

Away from his friends.

Away from his home.

Away from his life.

Away from his _baby brother._

There wasn’t a single other thought that could push him harder than that one.

_Oh…_

_Oh God…Hiro. What have I done?_

_I’m so so sorry._

_Hiro. My baby brother. My Hiro._

_I would never mean for this to happen._

_I just…_

_Someone needed to help and now I’ve left you alone._

_I told you years ago, that I’d never leave you, I’d always be there._

_I’d promised you that, as your big brother, I’d promised_

_I won’t break my promise._

He took hold of the rubble one more time, a white knuckled grip on the edges and he pushed.

The weight ground down on his bones, irritating the injuries that were hidden underneath the slab of ceiling.

But he kept pushing and like a little miracle the rubble gave and tumbled off of his body, revealing to him the extent of his injuries.

Part of his leg had been crushed, the limb swollen with blood and broken bone. The pain had been covered up in his desire to get out. He could also feel the cracks in his ribs, grinding together as his chest finally had the room to expand while the scratches and bruises that littered the rest of his body were too numerous to count.

Despite the growing horror at his injuries he turned his head away and struggled to his feet, almost collapsing again when his leg couldn’t take any pressure without throbbing painfully.

_Don’t worry Hiro, I’m coming._

_You’re going to do amazing things one day and I’m going to be there to see it. No more wasting that big brain of yours._

_Now that you’re finally coming to the labs we could work on a project together, just like when we were young._

_The Hamada brothers, master inventors and geniuses extraordinaire._

_Though you were always so much more of a genius then me._

_Maybe if I was as smart I wouldn’t have ran into this burning deathtrap._

_Wouldn’t have run away from you._

_Wait for me Hiro. Please. I’m coming back to you._

It was slow going. No matter how much he wanted to rush back outside and escape the scalding heat, his battered body could only trudge slowly through the wreckage.

The walls continued to fracture and the fire to grow, pressing closer and closer. He could practically feel his skin grow cherry red under its tender mercies.

Slowly the door drew nearer the glass doors, their frames barely standing after they’d been blown out by the raging inferno that still consumed them. The once normal entrance now looked like some gate to afterlife, complete with black smog and smoldering ruin.

Beyond the hellish portal was a small hazy form, collapsed on the ground. Now that he was finally close enough to separate some of voices in the jumbled mess outside he could understand what the little shadow was saying.

**Tadashi!**

It was calling for him. His little brother was lying there calling for him.

_Just a few more feet, come on._

His body ached, and whatever energy he had was leaving him as fast as he could muster it. He stumbled, landing on his hands and knees before the final wall of flames.

**Tadashi!**

_Hiro!_

He gave one last excruciating push, tumbling out of the building and into the blissfully fresh air.

He reached out for his rapidly approaching brother his body finally giving out on him.

The last thing he felt was a small set of arms wrap around him and a sobbing rendition of his name.

Then everything went dark.

_Hiro…._


	2. From the Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiro waits.

Two weeks. Three days. Five hours. Forty-eight minutes.

It had been exactly that long since the showcase fire.

It took about an hour after Hiro and Tadashi were brought to the hospital for someone to find and get a hold of Aunt Cass.

Needless to say the poor woman was beside herself in worry for her boys.

Hiro was battered from the explosion and lying unconscious in his hospital bed, and Tadashi was still in surgery after being immediately rushed to the ER.

So after she had seen the others home, Cass Hamada spent one long sleepless night in the hard plastic chair by the bedside of the one nephew she could watch over while praying for the one she couldn’t.

Tadashi had been in surgery for hours until he’d been given a room in the ICU, only for him to be put back on the table when more complications arose and he dropped into cardiac arrest.

Ten hours in total later, Tadashi, thankfully, finally stabilized and was resting peacefully in his own room.

One day and three hours after the two boys first arrived by ambulance Hiro woke up.

The first thing he did was panic, he almost threw himself screaming, off of the bed before Aunt Cass managed to get a hold on him and pull him into her arms.

“Tadashi!Tadashi!?”

“Hiro, sweetheart, I need you to calm down! He’s here, Tadashi is here!”

“…he’s here?”

“Yes Hiro, he’s resting in the ICU right now but he’s here, he made it out…”

It started with a sniffle, but soon Hiro had descended into great hiccupping sobs, tears streaming down his face as he slumped back onto the bed in relief.

His brother was alive.

Hiro had wanted to see him immediately but both the doctors, and his Aunt, were firm in requesting that he stay put in case he irritated his own injuries.

Of course as much as Hiro was a genius he was also stubborn and not an hour after waking he could be found bundled in his blanket on the chair in his brother’s ICU room.

It would be the first time he’d ever thought of his brother as small, but that was what he looked like.

He was hooked up to a number of monitors all of them carefully measuring his medication and body.

Hiro recognized the I.V line leading to one pale arm and was going to look up what the rest of the medication was when he got the chance.

The breathing tube feeding him oxygen made sense after all the damage the fire must have done to his lungs, and thinking about how he almost didn’t make it out had Hiro trembling in his chair.

The worst though had to be the burns.

The right leg was in a cast from foot to knee but every other inch of the leg, and all of the left one, were completely covered in sterile white bandages. His left arm was also completely mummified but from about the right elbow down the pallid skin was visible.

The bandages around the chest were carefully tied because of the numerous breaks in the rib cage and collarbones, thankfully his back had only be burned and not damaged or else Tadashi may not have been able to walk out.

The welts peeked out of the bandages on the left side of his face, angry red lines that would forever be visible on his face.

They wouldn’t even know the extent that the burns would affect him until he woke up, they could leave him blind or kill the feeling in his hands and feet and no matter how bad the affects the scars would envelop about half of his body.

So yes, wrapped up like mummy from one of Aunt Cass’ B-grade horror films and laying limp and grey skinned on the bed, Tadashi looked very small.

Hiro spent the next two days dodging around the doctors and sneaking into to his brother’s room as much as possible.

The third day after the fire Aunt Cass took him home. It was a quiet afternoon filled with reading up on all the medical procedures his brother was going through, tidying his room for lack of anything else to do and poking at his dinner.

The third night was spent alternately experiencing nightmares of fire and explosions that brought him to tears and suffering violent cold sweats that had him shivering in panic.

For the next two weeks Hiro suffered his nights at home and only managed to get a peaceful moment of sleep when he sat next to Tadashi during the days with their hands linked together.

Each of the gang visited a few times during the weeks.

 Fred and Wasabi both came in saying they were making sure that his lab was looked after, which ended with them bickering in low whispers before they sighed and promised to be back another time.

Wasabi commonly brought lunch for them and Fred was always good for distracting the doctors so they could stay even fifteen more minutes.

Honey spent most of her visits in tears with Aunt Cass the two of them exchanging words of strength, encouragement and thanks.

Every time she left she’d leave a small bundle of flowers in the vase on the bedside table, the collection brought some color to the otherwise drab room.

GoGo’s visit was interesting, they had an entire conversation between the two of them with only their eyebrows and either a sad smile or grimace before she had to leave. 

There was even one instance where she handed him a piece of gum and they sat together snapping bubbles and waiting for any sign of movement from the bed.

Him and Aunt Cass spent every day coming into the ward as early and as staying as late as possible. Waiting patiently yet desperately for Tadashi to make any sign of waking.

It took two weeks, three days, five hours and forty-eight minutes for something to happen.

After two weeks, three days, five hours and forty-eight minutes,

Tadashi woke up.


	3. A Bed of Coals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tadashi wakes.

The journey to consciousness was a slow one.

The last thing he remembered was the flames encroaching on his body.

The first thing he noticed was the steady electronic beep that had originally roused him.

Second was the prevailing numbness of his body, the only sensation he felt now was a moderately uncomfortable tightness radiating from his left side.

Blinking was like rubbing sandpaper over his eyes and the sudden influx of light made him clench them shut again. Carefully opening them again they slowly adjusted to the light but the room still swam in and out of focus.

Despite his difficulty in focusing it was still painfully obvious that he was in a hospital. The walls were the clean clinical white that was expected of them and surrounding him he could make out various monitoring machines and drips that were the source of the aforementioned beeping.

He tried shifting but he barely moved before he met soft resistance. But something else started to move instead.

A black and reddish blur was suddenly leaning over the side of his bed and seemed to be trying to say something to him but all he could here was gibberish.

_Hiro?_

“…ad..sh. T…shi. C.. ou …ear me? H..d on.. ll.. r..ght ..ack”

The blur disappeared and Tadashi tried reaching for it only to be stopped by whatever was restraining him again.

_Wait where are you going? Come back…_

He didn`t know why he was apparently restrained to the bed but as his surroundings finally started to clear he began to realize a few more things.

He was almost covered head to toe in heavy white gauze and soft restraints crossed over his body, pinning him to the bed.

His throat was itchy, the kind of feeling that makes you want to cough, but when he tried to clear his throat he was only able to sputter around the newly identified breathing tube that was lodged down his esophagus, his reflexive swallowing around the plastic causing a shock of pain each time.

He could feel the blood pounding in his ears and the accompanying beeps of the heart monitors began to speed up as he descended into panic.

_What’s going on? Hiro? Hiro!_

He tried to sit up, pulling at the wires and tubed attached to his body and pushing against the restraints.

Where was his little brother? He needed to see him, had to be with him.

A small warm hand touched some of the exposed skin of his shoulder and with a little application of pressure had him lying back down on his bed.

He looked up into the teary eyes of his little brother felt a wave of relief wash over him.

_There you are._

A young woman, dressed in the colored scrubs of a nurse stepped into his field of vision from behind Hiro.

“My apologies Mr.Hamada, let’s see if I can give you a hand with that”

The woman fluttered around the room, checking the readings on the machine monitors and flipping through the pages on the chart attached to his bed.

She smiled up at the two of them, and then moved back to his bedside, after unclipping the restraints she ran through a series of quick tests that finished off with a small penlight being flashed in his eyes.

He blinked rapidly once she removed the light.

“There’s an all-clear for removing the breathing tube Mr.Hamada, if you’re ready?”

He nodded, and in the few short minutes it took the nurse to clear everything up the tube slipped from his throat with a rattling cough.

“The doctor will be in shortly Mr. Hamada, just press the call button if you need anything. I’ll make sure someone gets a hold of your Aunt too.”

Just as quickly as she had swept in she was gone again and he was left alone with Hiro.

“Hey, Nerd”

There was a touch on his unwrapped hand and small fingers wound their way through his own.

He gripped the smaller hand tightly.

“Hey, Bonehead.”

He could see Hiro struggling not to fling himself at him, which might be good because he was beginning to feel the echoes of pain and discomfort across his body.

Eventually the younger settled for pulling the chair closer to the bed and keeping a firm hold on his hand.

They spent a few moments in silence, before questions began to bounce around in his head.

“Hiro… how bad is it?”

Hiro quickly averted his eyes,  lip trembling in a way it hadn't since before they were in high school and immediately he knew it was serious.

“When you… ran in, the building was almost ready to blow.”

He winced at the edge of darkness in the comment.

“They said you must be incredibly lucky, to make it through the blast.”

Fingers traced the edges of his bandages, which he realized now must cover burns.

“They had to bring you into surgery right away, you’re leg… was all wrecked and your burns… were pretty bad.”

He could see his brother focus on the side completely covered in bandages and winced.

“They had to print skin grafts Dashi… and your leg will take months to be even close to healing.”

He watched tears slip down Hiro’s face and noticed for the first time the dark circles under the normally bright eyes and the limp look to his hair.

“I thought… at first I thought that you’d never come out. That you’d … left me. That you were gone, that I was going to be alone.”

_Oh Hiro… how can you ever forgive me._

By now Hiro was taking heaving breaths, and he’d close the distance between them by laying his head on the unwrapped side of his body, trembling with the strength of his cries.

“Then I had to watch them stuff you into the back of an ambulance and I thought I’d lose you all over again.”

_I'm so sorry._

He moved his other hand and wound it into his little brother’s hair, his own tears threatening to spill over at the emotion in the small voice.

“Never again Hiro. I promise, never again. I’ll never leave you like that again. Not for anything. We’ll never be separated. ”

Hiro sniffled and raised his head, staring straight into his brother’s eyes. The undercurrent of desperation in the younger’s reflected in the elder’s

“Hamada brothers rule?”

_Do you promise?_

He nodded resolutely.

“The most important.”

_I promise._

The both of them took a shaky breath, the weight of the new rule settling between them.

Now that it was an official rule, instead of the unspoken idea it became when they were first left alone, it would never be forgotten and be overturned. They had chosen to tighten the ties that bound them by that much more.

For now they would heal and try and move on.

Neither realized how much it would change them.


End file.
